Recent Range Notes, Vol. III

Eagle Creek wound up being closed on Saturday, so the Weekend Shootiness was relocated to the indoor range at Popguns.

I ran a couple cylinders each through my Model 34 and a borrowed Model 18 to keep current on live-fire double action revolver shooting, and popped a few mags through a suppressed Mark II 22/45 and a regular Mark II with a Pac-Lite upper.

Most of the time was spent with the Para LTC 9, however. I did a lot of regular shooting and a bit of strong hand and weak hand work. In the course of over a hundred rounds of mixed FMJ and JHP there was only one malf to report; a failure to feed. The hardest habit I'm having to break from the years of working at an indoor range is standing there like a duck in thunder, staring at the malf. It's not a customer's gun, don't stand there diagnosing it; reduce the malfunction and drive on.

In this case, I was able to pick the culprit up off the lane tray after the string of fire. It was a round of JHP with a Sierra bullet that looked as though it had suffered severe setback; OAL was visibly short without even needing a comparator cartridge to measure against. Obviously I did not try to run it through the gun, but then I tend to not run cartridges that have hit the deck through my weapons. I do this because I like my weapons, my fingers, and my eyes, and ammunition is cheaper than gun parts and emergency surgery.

Anyhow, a good time was had by all. We'd have kept shooting longer, but a line was forming and Popguns only has six lanes, so we started feeling bad after we'd tied up two of them for an hour and a half.